An American Tragedy (129 page)

At the same time because of Clyde’s extreme youthfulness and a certain air of lonely dependence which marked him ever since his mother and Nicholson had gone: ‘I’ll always be in easy reach. I have a lot of religious work over in Syracuse but I’ll be glad to drop it at any time that I can really do anything more for you.” And here he turned as if to go.

But Clyde, now taken by him—his vital, confident and kindly manner—so different to the tense, fearful and yet lonely life here, called after him: “Oh, don’t go just yet. Please don’t. It’s very nice of you to come and see me and I’m obliged to you. My mother wrote me you might. You see, it’s very lonely here. I haven’t thought much of what you were saying, perhaps, because I haven’t felt as guilty as some think I am. But I’ve been sorry enough. And certainly any one in here prays a good deal.” His eyes looked very sad and strained.

And at once, McMillan, now deeply touched for the first time replied: “Clyde, you needn’t worry. I’ll come to see you again within a week, because now I see you need me. I’m not asking you to pray because I think you are guilty of the death of Roberta Alden. I don’t know. You haven’t told me. Only you and God know what your sins and your sorrows are. But I do know you need spiritual help and He will give you that—oh, fully. ‘The Lord will be a refuge for the oppressed; a refuge in time of trouble.’ ”

He smiled as though he were now really fond of Clyde. And Clyde feeling this and being intrigued by it, replied that there wasn’t anything just then that he wanted to say except to tell his mother that he was all right—and make her feel a little better about him, maybe, if he could. Her letters were very sad, he thought. She worried too much about him. Besides he, himself, wasn’t feeling so very good—not a little run down and worried these days. Who wouldn’t be in his position? Indeed, if only he could win to spiritual peace through prayer, he would be glad to do it. His mother had always urged him to pray—but up to now he was sorry to say he hadn’t followed her advice very much. He looked very distrait and gloomy—the marked prison pallor having long since settled on his face.

And the Reverend Duncan, now very much touched by his state, replied: “Well, don’t worry, Clyde. Enlightenment and peace are surely going to come to you. I can see that. You have a Bible there, I see. Open it anywhere in Psalms and read. The 51st, 91st, 23rd. Open to St. John. Read it all—over and over. Think and pray—and think on all the things about you—the moon, the stars, the sun, the trees, the sea—your own beating heart, your body and strength—and ask yourself who made them. How did they come to be? Then, if you can’t explain them, ask yourself if the one who made them and you—whoever he is, whatever he is, wherever he is, isn’t strong and wise enough and kind enough to help you when you need help—provide you with light and peace and guidance, when you need them. Just ask yourself what of the Maker of all this certain reality. And then ask Him—the Creator of it all—to tell you how and what to do. Don’t doubt. Just ask and see. Ask in the night—in the day. Bow your head and pray and see. Verily, He will not fail you. I know because I have that peace.”

He stared at Clyde convincingly—then smiled and departed. And Clyde, leaning against his cell door, began to wonder. The Creator! His Creator! The Creator of the World! . . . Ask and see——!

And yet—there was still lingering here in him that old contempt of his for religion and its fruits,—the constant and yet fruitless prayers and exhortations of his father and mother. Was he going to turn to religion now, solely because he was in difficulties and frightened like these others. He hoped not. Not like that, anyway.

Just the same the mood, as well as the temperament of the Reverend Duncan McMillan—his young, forceful, convinced and dramatic body, face, eyes, now intrigued and then moved Clyde as no religionist or minister in all his life before ever had. He was interested, arrested and charmed by the man’s faith—whether at once or not at all—ever—he could come to put the reliance in it that plainly this man did.

THE personal conviction and force of such an individual as the Reverend McMillan, while in one sense an old story to Clyde and not anything which so late as eighteen months before could have moved him in any way (since all his life he had been accustomed to something like it), still here, under these circumstances, affected him differently. Incarcerated, withdrawn from the world, compelled by the highly circumscribed nature of this death house life to find solace or relief in his own thoughts, Clyde’s, like every other temperament similarly limited, was compelled to devote itself either to the past, the present or the future. But the past was so painful to contemplate at any point. It seared and burned. And the present (his immediate surroundings) as well as the future with its deadly fear of what was certain to happen in case his appeal failed, were two phases equally frightful to his waking consciousness.

What followed then was what invariably follows in the wake of every tortured consciousness. From what it dreads or hates, yet knows or feels to be unescapable, it takes refuge in that which may be hoped for—or at least imagined. But what was to be hoped for or imagined? Because of the new suggestion offered by Nicholson, a new trial was all that he had to look forward to, in which case, and assuming himself to be acquitted thereafter, he could go far, far away—to Australia—or Africa—or Mexico—or some such place as that, where, under a different name—his old connections and ambitions relating to that superior social life that had so recently intrigued him, laid aside, he might recover himself in some small way. But directly in the path of that hopeful imagining, of course, stood the death’s head figure of a refusal on the part of the Court of Appeals to grant him a new trial. Why not—after that jury at Bridgeburg? And then—as in that dream in which he turned from the tangle of snakes to face the tramping rhinoceros with its two horns—he was confronted by that awful thing in the adjoining room—that chair! That chair! Its straps and its flashes which so regularly dimmed the lights in this room. He could not bear to think of his entering there—ever. And yet supposing his appeal was refused! Away! He would like to think no more about it.

But then, apart from that what was there to think of? It was that very question that up to the time of the arrival of the Rev. Duncan McMillan, with his plea for a direct and certainly (as he insisted) fruitful appeal to the Creator of all things, that had been definitely torturing Clyde. Yet see—how simple was his solution!

“It was given unto you to know the Peace of God,” he insisted, quoting Paul and thereafter sentences from Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, on how easy it was—if Clyde would but repeat and pray as he had asked him to—for him to know and delight in the “peace that passeth all understanding.” It was with him, all around him. He had but to seek; confess the miseries and errors of his heart, and express contrition. “Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For
every one
that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. For what man is there of you whom, if his son ask bread, will give him a stone; or, if he ask fish, will give him a serpent?” So he quoted, beautifully and earnestly.

And yet before Clyde always was the example of his father and mother. What had they? It had not availed them much—praying. Neither, as he noticed here, did it appear to avail or aid these other condemned men, the majority of whom lent themselves to the pleas or prayers of either priest or rabbi or minister, one and the other of whom was about daily. Yet were they not led to their death just the same—and complaining or protesting, or mad like Cutrone, or indifferent? As for himself, up to this he had not been interested by any of these. Bunk. Notions. Of what? He could not say. Nevertheless, here was the appealing Rev. Duncan McMillan. His mild, serene eyes. His sweet voice. His faith. It moved and intrigued Clyde deeply. Could there—could there? He was so lonely—so despairing—so very much in need of help.

Was it not also true (the teaching of the Rev. McMillan—influencing him to that extent at least) that if he had led a better life—had paid more attention to what his mother had said and taught—not gone into that house of prostitution in Kansas City—or pursued Hortense Briggs in the evil way that he had—or after her, Roberta—had been content to work and save, as no doubt most men were—would he not be better off than he now was? But then again, there was the fact or truth of those very strong impulses and desires within himself that were so very, very hard to overcome. He had thought of those, too, and then of the fact that many other people like his mother, his uncle, his cousin, and this minister here, did not seem to be troubled by them. And yet also he was given to imagining at times that perhaps it was because of superior mental and moral courage in the face of passions and desires, equivalent to his own, which led these others to do so much better. He was perhaps just willfully devoting himself to these other thoughts and ways, as his mother and McMillan and most every one else whom he had heard talk since his arrest seemed to think.

What did it all mean? Was there a God? Did He interfere in the affairs of men as Mr. McMillan was now contending? Was it possible that one could turn to Him, or at least some creative power, in some such hour as this and when one had always ignored Him before, and ask for aid? Decidedly one needed aid under such circumstances—so alone and ordered and controlled by law—not man—since these, all of them, were the veriest servants of the law. But would this mysterious power be likely to grant aid? Did it really exist and hear the prayers of men? The Rev. McMillan insisted yes. “He hath said God hath forgotten; He hideth His face. But He has not forgotten. He has not hidden His face.” But was that true? Was there anything to it? Tortured by the need of some mental if not material support in the face of his great danger, Clyde was now doing what every other human in related circumstances invariably does—seeking, and yet in the most indirect and involute and all but unconscious way, the presence or existence at least of some superhuman or supernatural personality or power that could and would aid him in some way—beginning to veer—however slightly or unconsciously as yet,—toward the personalization and humanization of forces, of which, except in the guise of religion, he had not the faintest conception. “The Heavens declare the Glory of God, and the Firmament showeth His handiwork.” He recalled that as a placard in one of his mother’s mission windows. And another which read; “For He is Thy life and Thy length of Days.” Just the same—and far from it as yet, even in the face of his sudden predisposition toward the Rev. Duncan McMillan, was he seriously moved to assume that in religion of any kind was he likely to find surcease from his present miseries?

And yet the weeks and months going by—the Rev. McMillan calling regularly thereafter, every two weeks at the longest, sometimes every week and inquiring after his state, listening to his wants, advising him as to his health and peace of mind. And Clyde, anxious to retain his interest and visits, gradually, more and more, yielding himself to his friendship and influence. That high spirituality. That beautiful voice. And quoting always such soothing things. “Brethren
now
are we the children of God. And it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that has this hope in him purifieth himself even as He is pure.”

“Hereby know that we dwell in Him and He in us, because He hath given us of His spirit.”

“For ye are bought with a price.”

“Of His own will begot He us with the word of truth, and we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures. And every good and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

“Draw nigh unto God and He will draw nigh unto you.”

He was inclined, at times, to feel that there might be peace and strength—aid, even—who could say, in appealing to this power. It was the force and the earnestness of the Rev. McMillan operating upon him.

And yet, the question of repentance—and with it confession. But to whom? The Rev. Duncan McMillan, of course. He seemed to feel that it was necessary for Clyde to purge his soul to him—or some one like him—a material and yet spiritual emissary of God. But just there was the trouble. For there was all of that false testimony he had given in the trial, yet on which had been based his appeal. To go back on that now, and when his appeal was pending. Better wait, had he not, until he saw how that appeal had eventuated.

But, ah, how shabby, false, fleeting, insincere. To imagine that any God would bother with a person who sought to dicker in such a way. No, no. That was not right either. What would the Rev. McMillan think of him if he knew what he was thinking?

But again there was the troubling question in his own mind as to his real guilt—the amount of it. True there was no doubt that he had plotted to kill Roberta there at first—a most dreadful thing as he now saw it. For the complications and the fever in connection with his desire for Sondra having subsided somewhat, it was possible on occasion now for him to reason without the desperate sting and tang of the mental state that had characterized him at the time when he was so immediately in touch with her. Those terrible, troubled days when in spite of himself—as he now understood it (Belknap’s argument having cleared it up for him) he had burned with that wild fever which was not unakin in its manifestations to a form of insanity. The beautiful Sondra! The glorious Sondra! The witchery and fire of her smile then! Even now that dreadful fever was not entirely out but only smoldering—smothered by all of the dreadful things that had since happened to him.

Also, it must be said on his behalf now, must it not—that never, under any other circumstances, would he have succumbed to any such terrible thought or plot as that—to kill any one—let alone a girl like Roberta—unless he had been so infatuated—lunatic, even. But had not the jury there at Bridgeburg listened to that plea with contempt? And would the Court of Appeals think differently? He feared not. And yet was it not true? Or was he all wrong? Or what? Could the Rev. McMillan or any one else to whom he would explain tell him as to that? He would like to talk to him about it—confess everything perhaps, in order to get himself clear on all this. Further, there was the fact that having plotted for Sondra’s sake (and God, if no one else, knew that) he still had not been able to execute it. And that had not been brought out in the trial, because the false form of defense used permitted no explanation of the real truth then—and yet it was a mitigating circumstance, was it not—or would the Rev. McMillan think so? A lie had to be used, as Jephson saw it. But did that make it any the less true?